Thursday

Sep 23, 2010 at 12:01 AMSep 23, 2010 at 11:01 PM

Voters who want to know Illinois candidates’ stances on government reform issues can go to a website that outlines their views on 20 yes-or-no questions brought up by CHANGE Illinois, a coalition of dozens of reform groups and individual advocates.

Voters who want to know Illinois candidates’ stances on government reform issues can go to a website that outlines their views on 20 yes-or-no questions brought up by CHANGE Illinois, a coalition of dozens of reform groups and individual advocates.

Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Political Reform, said not all of the issues discussed in the survey are supported by all of the groups in the coalition. The website is an effort to educate voters about the variety of reform issues under discussion, she said.

The questions were developed by eight reform organizations: the Better Government Association, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, Citizen Advocacy Center, Common Cause Illinois, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, Illinois Public Interest Research Group and Protestants for the Common Good.

Seven differences

All five candidates for governor have answered the questions. Of the 20 questions, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and his Republican opponent, state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, had different answers on seven:

*Brady favors banning unions and corporations from making direct contributions to candidates from their bank accounts. Quinn said he did not favor a ban. The practice is allowed in Illinois.

*Quinn favors creating a voluntary public financing program for statewide, legislative and appellate and Supreme Court races. Brady is against it.

*Quinn favors changing state law to count prison inmates as residents of their home areas instead of where they are incarcerated for the purpose of drawing congressional, state and local legislative district boundaries. Brady said he is undecided.

*Quinn supports allowing voters to register to vote on Election Day. Brady is against it.

*Quinn favors setting equal petition signature requirements for all candidates “and creating safeguards to protect qualified candidates from frivolous efforts to remove them from the ballot.” Brady said he is undecided.

Legislative leaders

Brady and Quinn agree on the most contentious reform issue facing the legislature. Both favor limiting the amount of money legislative leaders and state parties can contribute to legislative candidates. There are already contribution limits during the primary election.

The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have blocked efforts to expand the limits to the general election. Republican leaders say they support limiting leader and party contributions to reduce the influence leaders have over members.

Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has said such limits will cause leaders and political parties to spend money in those races without consulting with the candidates. Such uncoordinated expenditures cannot be limited by law.

Jim Bray, a spokesman for CHANGE Illinois, said the ability of the leaders to pour, in some cases, $1 million into a candidate’s campaign account can deter even strong challengers from making a race.

Even if leaders and the parties poured uncoordinated resources into a contest, the leader “would have to step back, not have his own staff members down there working directly with the candidate, not sharing the polling information. He’d have to do the message himself. He probably would end up spending more money. He’d be wasting a lot, probably,” Bray said.

On other issues, both Brady and Quinn favor term limits for statewide elected officials, state legislators and the Illinois House speaker and Illinois Senate president.

They also support barring contributions from those that hold large state contracts to all legislative candidates. Current law bans such contributions to the officeholder awarding a contract.

Quinn and Brady also support appointing an independent, bipartisan commission to draw state legislative and congressional boundaries.

Few legislative responses

While all the major gubernatorial candidates have responded to the survey, only 30 percent of legislative candidates have answered, said Jim Bray, a spokesman for CHANGE Illinois!

In local races, both candidates in the 99th House District, Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, and Democrat Kent DeLay, responded to the survey, as did the two candidates in the 49th Senate District race, state Sen. Deanna Demuzio, D-Carlinville and her Republican opponent, Sam McCann.